Pages

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Crème brulée is nothing but a crème anglaise made with cream and half the amount of sugar. While you learn to make crème brulée, you may as well learn how to make Floating Island (ile flottante) so you don’t waste egg whites.
What makes the crème brulee special is definitely the butano torch. They are very inexpensive, and totally worth having. We bought ours at Amazon.com, and we love it. You can also use it for lemon pie, onion soup, huevos rancheros, and plenty of other preparations.
You’ll get the best flavor if you use real vanilla bean (it’s way better… no joking). But if you don’t have it, or you find it very expensive, just make sure you add vanilla essence after you cooked the crème brulée (otherwise you’ll lose flavor while cooking).

Preparation
You can do it by hand, but it’s pretty easy to do it with an electric mixer.
First make a cut on the vanilla bean. Place it with the cream on a (sauce?) pan over medium heat.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until white. You’ll know they’re ready when you can draw letter’s or a “ribbon” with it.
Once the cream is hot, pour it slowly onto the egg mix, while beating. Once you integrated the mix, place everything back to the pan.
Over very low heat, stir it with a wooden spoon until the mix thickens. Now, the final consistency you’re looking for on a crème bruleé will come after you let it cool in the fridge for an hour or two, so make sure you don’t overcook it!
Place it on nice pots, cover them with film (to avoid other flavors from your fridge to get into the crème bruleé!) and wait an hour or two.
Once you’re ready to serve (you had 2 hours to make dinner, cooked, ate and ready for dessert!) sprinkle some sugar and burn it with the torch.